The Secret of the Potter Vault
by Narwinye
Summary: Dumbledore claims Harry as his 'possession' and makes sure that he can reside in a Gringotts Vault not influenced by any human but him. But it soon seems as if the Dark Lord really is gone forever. What will happen with Harry now that he's not needed?
1. Chapter 1

This is my first published fanfiction in years. I hope there will be someone out there that likes it... Well, we'll see.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything HARRY POTTERwise. ButI think everyone knows that. I also don't make any money with this. Even if I could use it.

Chapter 1

In the cold hallways of Gringotts the goblin named Griphook was carrying a small bundle in his arms. A living, breathing one. A human child to be exact. As the pair of them slowly made their way into the deepest part of the ancient building, the infant began to stir.

It opened its eyes for the first time that day and the fierce looking goblin met the unbelievably green gaze of Harry Potter, the child that had been scarred by one of the darkest wizards of their era. The child, which would be known to the wizarding world as their 'savior' and as the only being to ever survive being hit with the unforgivable killing curse.

The goblin could not help but feel regret in his heart, for he was there to do the bidding of the head goblin, and his orders were to lock the child into the ancient Potter vault.

Harry Potter was a ward of Gringotts now. A possession given into the goblin's hands for protection by the great Albus Dumbledore, so that the boy-who-lived would not come into contact with any human beings until it was time for him to be brought out of hiding again.

Until it was safe.

Until he no longer could be corrupted by ideas that could be detrimental to the plans of the old wizard. Or until the child was needed again, because Albus Dumbledore, defeater of Grindelwald, supreme Mugwump, was not at all sure that the dark wizard that had destroyed the boys life tonight and had before that attempted to do the same to the British wizarding world at a whole, really was dead.

If that was the case, Harry Potter would definitely be needed again.

--

Yeah, well didn't happen much in here. More to come.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don'T own anything HARRY POTTERwise. Not now, not ever.

Still not much of the storyline...

Chapter Two

„Master Harry Potter should not be slacking off when it comes to his education," a little voice said as loudly as it could. "You know that Darien will have to punish himself if Master Dumbledore finds out that Master Harry Potter has not done his reading. I might not be allowed to take care of Master Harry Potter anymore, and then you would be all alone here in Master Harry Potters vault. Then you would have no choice but to do your reading Master Harry Potter, sir."

The squeaky voice obviously belonged to a house elf. A house elf that was jumping up and down at the moment, trying to get a small child to do what it said. Said child did not seem all that interested, an appearance upheld by the fact that it would simply turn around in his nest of blankets and try to hide under the covers. Grumbling, a head poked out under a dark grey comforter.

"I do nothing but reading and learning every day, Darien! Sometimes it feels as if I'm full of knowledge, so full that nothing fits into me anymore." Green eyes met large yellow ones. "I really don't think that not reading is going to hurt anyone, is it?"

Never the less, the boy slowly began to work himself out of the blankets that were piled upon him. He got up and walked to a magically erected bathing area that had been a gift for his seventh birthday, a few weeks prior. Albus Dumbledore had send it to him via the connective device that would provide most things that he needed while living in the Gringotts vault. After all, the Goblins work did not include caring for the Potter child; they only had to make sure he was safe.

After brushing his hair and clothing himself, Harry slowly wandered over to his working space. Actually it could also be called his living space, because in all honesty the boy rarely did anything else than learn. He had been given a house elf that had educated him in the basic things a child needed to know. He had learned to read, to write and to do easy kinds of calculation. All other things he had to learn by reading books or –sometimes- listening to them.

Despite his appearing reluctance to learn, the young boy really enjoyed reading, but his books of choice seldom were the kind of books the headmasters study schedule allowed him. He loved the old wizarding legends the most. There were many of them after all; for each old pureblood family there was at least one legend as to how they had come into their magical inheritance. Of course his instructor, Darien the house elf made sure he knew the factual history of those families too, when he saw him reading them.

"What are we learning today, Darien?" the boy called to his teacher while eating his breakfast. He always was given oatmeal, to help his body recuperating from the lack of sunlight. As far as Harry knew, the headmaster slipped him nutrition potions with it, for he had read that bland food –like oatmeal- was one of the best substances for mixing with them.

Darien was always bringing the books he had to study that day to him after he finished his bowl of oatmeal, but it seemed that today the house elf was otherwise occupied that day. He was neither answering him, nor was he in sight when Harry turned around to look for him.

He frowned. His teacher never took this long to get from the book chamber to his living quarters. Naturally curious the child decided to go searching for his instructor. He left the chamber he mainly lived in and walked into the main room, nearly falling over a goblin that was piling gold onto the constantly growing piles of gold.

"I'm sorry," he said bowing to the young and astonished looking goblin. "I didn't mean to walk into you." The wrinkled skinned adolescent – for that's what he looked like- only blinked up at him. It seemed nobody had told him that there was a human being living in these vaults.

"Right," Harry mumbled when he got no answer but the goblins recurring blink. "You did not by any chance see a house elf coming by, did you?" He looked expectantly down and still got no verbal answer. But at least the creature lifted his arm and signaled to the door on the right, so Harry decided to take that answer and leave, before the poor goblin would die of a heart attack.

He walked fast paced to the door and threw a polite "Thank you for your help!" over his shoulder right as he left the main hall. He heard the squeak of the vaults door not even a minute after as the goblin presumably left to send word to his chef, that there was a human child living in the Potter vault.

"What a strange fellow that was," said Harry to himself." I really did not think that I was that frightening." With a frown on his face he wandered off in search of his house elf.

Yeah. I would like to now what you think. So, if you want to tell me, there's a button down there.


	3. Chapter 3

Hello! So here is the next chapter of my story. I hope you still like it. If not give me a review and tell me what's wrong. If you do, do the same and tell me what you like! I'm interested in everything: from random thoughts, to nondescript "Yeahs". Even a simple Yes or No is appreciated, even though that doesn't hold much advice.

Oh yes, this story is best viewed in half page mode

Chapter 3

Harry slowly walked through the constantly changing rooms of the Potter vault, as he searched for his house elf. While he was holding his eyes open to catch a glimpse of the yellow eyes or the green skin of Darien, he also tried to note which artifacts had been added to or removed from the cabinets and shelves that lined the walls, for it was not often that he was allowed out of his personal chamber and the account managers of the Potter family were always trying to accumulate even more wealth by selling artifacts or investing money. The last Potter male always enjoyed playing with some of the more amusing magical trinkets that could be found in the many of his vaults halls, but it seemed neither the goblins, nor the house elf employed by Albus Dumbledore wanted Harry to be near the ancient and most magical things.

In fact, the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry didn't bless the young boy with his presence very often. It seemed to be a much more common occurrence that the old wizard visited the vault that Harry's ancestors had left him to take a book or a certain gleaming ornament or some magical device with him, without ever seeing the boy at all. He of course thought the boy didn't realize why he did that. But Harry surely did know that it was a burden to the headmaster's full schedule to visit one lonely boy more often. He had been explained by Darien that the Dumbledore was a very important man to the wizarding world. "A lord of the light, Harry, should be there for the people." His teacher had told him. "He should be there for everyone who has need of him. One little boy that has no problems at all, that isn't in any real danger and that doesn't suffer any pain or hunger is definitely not important enough to hold such an important man's attention for extended periods of time."

But Harry had not quite understood why he wasn't deemed worthy of more than one meager visit each year. Because that was all he got. Each year, at his birthday, the Professor came to visit him and it was always a spectacular present that he brought with him. That was, if the child had done all that he had been asked and had obeyed all orders that he been give.

One year, on his 6th Birthday, the headmaster had not come until the day after Harrys Birthday. And he had not brought a present with him either. He claimed that he had been unable to condone such behavior, that the young child had displayed a few weeks prior. That had been a time where Harry had been defiant and absolutely disobedient. Everything he had been told by his instructor, be it to do his writing practice or even to wash himself in the morning had not only not been done, but had also spawned a spectacular temper-tantrum. The headmaster had visited Harry and told him in a very calm and almost cold manner, that he was very disappointed in the young child.

He had said, "While I normally would expect such behavior from normal children, you must understand, that you're not in the least normal. You're special, very special not only to me, but to the entire wizarding world. And while normally, that would give you much leeway with anyone; you'll have to see that the world depends on you. You will be the world's savior. You will be the only hope of witches and wizards and that is why you're here. You're here so that you can be prepared for the day that you'll be the role model of an entire generation of wizards. You're here, all alone, so you can prove that you're worthy of being a hero, that you can endure everything that is thrown at your path in the future. And most importantly, because you have to be pure to be able to guide the wizarding population. Not tainted, not corrupted by the way our government and the forces of Dark Magic have ruled our country in the last generations. You'll be my way to make the wizarding world a place of light and a place where everyone is content to be who they are."

He had crouched down to look into the wide eyes of the Potter boy and whispered: "After you have killed the Dark Lord for real, you'll be the wizarding world's last chance at rearranging itself, Harry. It is a twisted and dark world out there, but together we'll lead them into the future. No. The future will be made by us."

He had slowly stood up again and had left the confused boy standing in his quarters. Not a single word had been spoken by the child after that, but a frown had stayed upon his brow for what seemed like eternity.

A year after that had been the first chance for the boy to give his apologies to the older wizard. He hadn't seen a human being in an entire year.

Truly, Harry still did not understand why he couldn't in the presence of other humans, but it was not as if he could do something about it.

--

Harry had finally reached the last hall of the Potter vault. It was the Hall of Wisdom, a room that held books piled upon books, many of them long forgotten in the modern wizarding world. The room was bright, it was lit by what looked to be hundreds of little dancing fires that hovered over the book shelves and which flames even sometimes licked the old parchment that was all over the room, without ever turning it to ash. Harry had only been in here a few times in his life, he had been told that since many of the books were dark in nature, they could be harmful. There were supposed to be books in here that killed the reader or simply sucked him into their pages to feed from their magic.

To be honest, this was the favorite room of the small human called Harry Potter. He knew for a fact that the most interesting stories would be found in here. There would be tales of families and of love and of all kinds of magical happenings. There would be things to be learned about magic itself, old spells, new charms, long-forgotten hexes. In short, many things would be found in here that would be quite a bit more interesting than the dreadfully boring history books that Darien was always making him read. Harry sighed. "I would love to get my hands on these books," he whispered. "I'm sure they could entertain me for the rest of my life and I wouldn't be bored ever again!"

Then he shot around because a someone coughed behind him. It was his instructor, the very house elf he had been searching for, the entire time. "Darien!" Harry addressed his teacher. "I know I'm not supposed to be in here, but you wouldn't come back and I just wanted to see if something had happened to you. After all you always said it was dangerous in here, really dangerous!" The Potter child hastened to explain his misdeed to his instructor, so he wouldn't be punished for something that was not even meant as an offense, but Darien simply indicated for him to stop his babbling.

The small creature cleared his throat for the second time and looked uncomfortable. "The Master Professor Dumbledore, sir, has decided that Darien will be needed at Hogwarts again. He has told Darien to tell Master Harry Potter, sir, that Master Harry Potter, sir, will still be required to follow his lesson plans and that there will be someone send to check up on Master Harry potter, sir."

"Darien is very sorry to be leaving you alone Master Harry Potter, sir, but Darien mustn't disobey orders and Master Harry Potter, sir, mustn't do so either." The wrinkled face looked as if it would start crying any moment and Harry himself didn't fare much better either. His eyes were opened wider than normally possible and his mouth was opened quite wide, what gave him the overall appearance of a strangely humanoid looking fish.

A subdued voice came out of his mouth a few moments later. "What do you mean he decided you're needed at Hogwarts? You can't leave me here all alone? I don't…" There was a lump in the poor child's throat "Why is he doing that!?" Tears started to slide down his cheeks. Like small, perfect pearls the fell from his chin onto his robes and the tear tracks on his face were illuminated by the magical fires that were burning soundlessly and constantly all around the pair of them.

The house elf that had been his companion for the most part of his life put a starched handkerchief into the child's hands and wiped a few tears of his own from his wrinkled, green colored face. His ears were pointing downwards and his hands were fisted in his tea towel. It was no accident that the embroidered Hogwarts insignia was the thing crumpled the most by his long, thin fingers, for in his mind he subservient being held thoughts concerning his master that he would have to punish himself for at a later time.

He hugged Harry and started to leave the room quietly. He had to follow his orders, but he would have rather stayed and comforted the small child he had come to care very deeply for. In his mind there was no human being that deserved kindness as much as Harry Potter. He vowed that he would at least make sure, that the boy would have the support of the race of house elves because Darien was not stupid. He knew that many trials would lie in front of the boy that was crying back in the room that held the wisdom of his ancestors.

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Thanks go out to my two lonely reviewers, especially Goldengirl2. - Now people, this most wonderful first reviewer also added me to her Story Alert list which is so cool! I can't help but do a little Jig whenever I think about it.

Also, I'm thanking the three people who added my story to their Favorites and the other six people who did the same as the glorious Goldengirl2 in adding it to their Story Alert lists!

You guys are awesome!  
(Even though I wish more of the many people who read it had left a review.  
But I guess two Reviews are better than none.)

Tell me if you like it!


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